A pilot who smuggled cocaine worth £33.5m into the UK on his light aircraft has been sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Andrew Wright, who was nicknamed "Biggles", imported 268kg of the Class-A drug on eight trips over a three-month period in 2014.

The 52-year-old was using an aerial photography business to cover up his drug trafficking.

Mark Dowling, who concocted the scheme, was jailed for 24 years - while his right-hand man, Jamie Williams, received a 23-year sentence at the Old Bailey.

Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told the three men their smuggling crimes were "off the scale" and of "exceptional seriousness".

Image Caption:The National Crime Agency says this plane was used in the drug plot

Wright had taken his nickname from the fictional aviator and adventurer - and he would fly each drug haul from Germany to Breighton Airfield in North Yorkshire after Williams had collected the cocaine from Holland.

Their smuggling ring was smashed after a border control officer met Wright on his arrival to the UK in November 2014.

Four bricks of cocaine were discovered in the boot of a Porsche Cayenne, with 30 more blocks found in the plane's tail section.

The court heard how the cocaine had a street value of £4.25m.

Police only fully learned of the plot's sophistication when they searched Dowling's home and found documents which proved they were generating large sums of money and had nearly £2m at their disposal.

The pilot was being paid £1,500 for every kilogram he imported to the UK - while Williams, who would drive the drugs from Holland to an airport in Germany, was charging a flat rate of £12,000 plus expenses.

Both men had pleaded guilty to their part in the smuggling plot - and Williams was also sentenced for unrelated firearms, drugs and money laundering offences.

During mitigation, the court was told Wright had "taken the eye off the ball" of his once legitimate aerial photography business - and had suffered financial difficulties after his wife's son was killed in a road crash.

Although the judge noted the personal tragedy, he said he had to bear in mind how cocaine can also ruin lives, and explained how his sentence was designed to deter other pilots from getting involved in similar schemes.

Detective Constable Pete Wakefield, of North Yorkshire Police's Special Branch, said: "Although people may think that we are a quiet, rural county this case goes to show that serious and organised crime does happen here and Wright's arrest prevented a large quantity of Class A drugs making it onto the streets."